Re: deployed platform app has 2 exe files

Those two executables are launchers. The one with suffix "64" is a 64-bit
Windows binary and the other is a 32-bit Windows binary.

What they actually launch is a JVM with your application. In the end what
determines if your application is 64-bit or 32-bit is the JVM, rather than
the launcher.  On a 64-bit system you can probably use both launchers but
on a 32-bit system (not many people still use 32-bit Windows) you'll get an
error if you try to execute the 64-bit executable. I'll be surprised if you
can actually execute the myapp64.exe on a 32-bit Windows as you claim.

You can use Process Explorer from Microsoft (it's a free download) to
figure out if an exe file is 32-bit or 64-bit. More info here:
http://superuser.com/a/358485/487848.   Process Explorer should be part of
everyone's tool box in any case if you ask me. If you don't like an
external tool even if its from Microsoft then remember that you can also
see the 32-vs-64bit information in Task Manager, but that of course
requires you to actually execute the binary.


Side note: For NB Platform Applications I make it a rule always to bundle a
JVM with the application itself. This way I have full control over if the
JVM used is 32-bit or 64-bit. In this day and age it no longer makes sense
to rely on the user to a install a JVM himself. If you don't bundle a JVM
you'll leave it to the launcher to try to find a suitable JVM on the host.
Also, since I've asked the user during the download phase if he wants a
32-bit application or a 64-bit application (and for what OS) it means I can
safely delete one of those launcher binaries in the package the user
downloads, so in the end my users will only see one binary if they look in
the /bin directory. I guess you don't have to go the same extremes. :-)


Peter




On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 5:00 PM, mccorb <[email protected]>
wrote:

> When I create a NetBeans Platform app and deploy it, it has 2 executables
> in the bin subdirectory....for example myapp.exe and myapp64.exe.
> myapp64.exe is always larger than myapp.exe. It doesn't matter if I am
> putting the app on a 32 or 64 bit platform either so that doesn't seem to
> have anything to do with it.
>
> It also doesn't matter which one I click on to execute the platform
> application.
>
> Can anyone tell me the difference and why there are always 2 different
> ones?
>
> thanks
>
>
>
>
>